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So Alive

…is the name of the first single from the new Ryan Adams album, titled ROCKNROLL, due for release on 11/4.

Now, I love Ryan. I really do. I accept the tantrums and outbursts and stubbornness. All of the above means that when he has an off night, it’s really off. But it also means that when he is great, it’s an evening of brilliance.

I wasn’t sure what I thought about this song at first listen, or second, or third. Then I put it on repeat, and left it there for a while. A few listens later, it sunk in.

In one of my roadtrip diaries, I talk about a moment where I had switched from listening to Greendale for the first time, to Born To Run, sweeping down the open highway at sunset, the sun making the road a golden ribbon stretching out forever. The roof was open and the window was down, my hair was blowing back in the wind. And I felt free and clean and pure and centered and just plain HERE, in the moment, alive and good and happy.

This song gives me the same feeling.

I don’t know what the rest of it will be like; he already dumped one record (Love Is Hell, of which there are now two versions, one recorded in New Orleans and one recorded in NYC), but if all that comes out of ROCKNROLL is this one song that can bring me back to that place and time, he’ll have done good.

You can download it yourselves here. Wonder how long it’ll take for the rest of it to leak.